The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-091999 filed on Mar. 28, 2001, No. 2001-255071 filed on Aug. 24, 2001 and No. 2001-348782 filed on Nov. 14, 2001 including the specification, drawings and abstracts are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle molding and method for attaching the vehicle molding to a vehicle body panel through a clip and the structure of the molding.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle molding as a related art of the invention is well known which is decoratively attached to the vehicle body panel such as a vehicle side door and protects the body panel. As one of the attachment methods of the molding body to the body panel, a clip is used as an attaching member to attach the molding to the vehicle body panel.
In this attachment method, each opposing surface of the clip and the vehicle molding body has an engaging portion for engagement of both clip and the molding body. At these engaging portions, the clip and the vehicle molding body are engaged with each other so that the clip is integrally formed on the vehicle molding body. Then the clip is engaged with the body panel and the molding body is attached to the vehicle body panel.
It is necessary for the above attachment method to provide a sufficient thickness at each engaging portion of the clip and the body panel. In case of a structure of a molding having a thin thickness from the outer surface to the inner surface, it may be difficult to achieve the attachment according to the above method.
Further, in the above attachment method, it is necessary to provide an undercut portion in the mold for forming the molding body so that the engaging portion of the molding body can be formed. It takes time to form the molding body due to the necessity of providing such undercut portion. In order to separate the molded product from the undercut portion of the mold, the mold device for the vehicle molding body becomes very complicated.
Considering the above conventional problems, the invention provides a vehicle molding and method for attaching the vehicle molding, wherein the vehicle molding is easy to be formed and even a vehicle molding with thinner thickness can be attached to the vehicle body panel.
In order to achieve the above purpose, a vehicle molding according to one aspect of the invention includes an elongated molding body with a recessed portion (concave portion) at a portion opposing to the body panel and having a welding rib in the concave portion, and an attachment member provided in the concave portion of the molding body and having a rib hole for inserting the welding rib.
Attachment of the vehicle molding to the vehicle body according to the invention is achieved as follows:
The engagement portion formed on the attachment member attached to the molding body is engaged with the hole opening to the body panel to attach the molding to the vehicle body.